Ralph Bethards This is Me

 Web References

1. 1. All that love mothers give has its reward

   www.springfieldnewssun.com/aut - [Cached]

   Published on: 5/12/2002   Last Visited: 5/12/2002

   In 1960, when the now 41-year-old was two weeks old, Helen and Ralph Bethards took him in and raised him as their own.
   ...
   Ralph Bethards said he doesn't think he and his wife, who had no children of their own, did anything spectacular.
   
   "We didn't have too much difficulty," he said. "Back then, when we were raising them, groceries weren't too expensive."
   
   ...
   In 1959, Ralph Bethards began working in the maintenance department of the News-Sun.
   
   "She quit her job to raise us all," he said. "These were people who had really good jobs at one time. They could have had the world by the tail, but they gave it up to raise us."